In my series about how your time is one of your most critical business growth tools, I'd like to consider the degree to which business owners unconsciously and willingly throw their time down the drain on a daily basis.

Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, Duncan Bannatyne and Nigel Botterill. All successful business people and all, you may be amazed to discover, restricted by the same number of hours and minutes in a day as you. The difference is in what they do with that time - and wasting it is likely to feature high on their 'criminal activity' list.

Most of us don't consciously waste our time - we don't sit there thinking 'oh, I can't be bothered, pass the crossword', but in our unconscious behaviours we achieve exactly that. Little things that happen day in day out and which conspire to eat away at our time like a hungry and persistent caterpillar.

For example ...

1. Do you start your day by opening your emails, and letting others dictate your agenda of the day? How frequently have you heard yourself say 'I don't know where the time has gone', or 'I don't seem to have a achieved anything on my list today'.
2. Do you do your own book keeping? Are you qualified to do this? Is this genuinely the best use of your time? At £15 to £20 an hour, is this not something you could delegate?
3. Are you answering your own phone? Not only does this have a time impact generally, but again it could hijack your agenda when a needy customer calls and hey presto, your plan for the day sails out of the window. A Virtual assistant - or VA - is a low cost and highly effective resource that can give a great impression to your callers and will keep you focused on the job in hand.

Is your 80/20 balance working?

We've all heard of the 80/20 rule and how the 20% - of anything - is the part that counts the most. Given a normal 7.5 hour working day, 20% of this is 90 minutes.

Your brain can operate at high performance for 90 minutes at a time - preferably uninterrupted so the brain can stay focused - and you can achieve SO much in that relatively short space of time. If, by better time management behaviours, you could salvage 90 minutes a day to work ON your business, just imagine the heights you could achieve.

So ask yourself...

1. Are you spending your time on the 20% 'critical' activities for your business?
2. What are the 80% of activities in your business that you could delegate?

Ultimately it is with your CONSCIOUS behaviours that you will grow your business. So please be conscious about how you spend your time and become the master of your destiny rather than the victim of your poor management.

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